Taking a peek at Apache Solr
We’ve been talking about upgrading #1 German Drupal community DrupalCenter from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 for a while. We’re also thinking about new features and layout once we get this done. Our content-rich site would definitely get even more attractive with advanced and fast faceted search capabilities. Right nor Drupal’s integrated search isn’t of much fun and it’s so slow…
Because I also server as admin to our dedicated server and have a copy of our site running for tests I spontaneously gave Apache Solr integration a shot. All I had to do was installing Java 5 SDK, installing Apache Solr integration module, downloading, configuring and starting Apache Lucene Solr. Even whithout a fully-fledged servlet container like Tomcat, just using the integrated Jetty engine, it was a lot of fun.
Most of the time time was spend on indexing the content and configuration of Solr facet blocks. Solr search is amazingly fast compared to core search but also leads t more page impressions as you narrow down your searches one by one. It’s a new way of searching mostly known from big sites like Amazon and eBay.
But we also ran into kinda trouble as Solr indexed everything, even content that is protected from regular users. We have internal forums for our moderatores and admins protected by Forum Access module (using Node Access), but even those nodes get indexed. OK, normal users cannot view those protected nodes, but they appear along with some of the nodes’ content on the SERPs.
A quick look at the issue queue made clear that this is a non-trivial problem that causes some headaches across the community. It will be interesting to see how Acquia adresses these issueswith their Solr service called Acquia Search, which is currently in beta mode.
1408
I really like horror movies. It’s been a while when I read about 1408 on a German horror movie fansite and saw a trailer but I was almost instantly caught by it. It wasn’t because it’s based on a short story by Stephen King, although I love King and read quite a few of his masterpieces. It was more because I trusted in John Cusack as an actor and his sense for the good stuff. I never ever saw him starring in a bad movie, no matter to which genre it belonged.
To make it short: The movie did not disappoint me. To tell you the truth, it is one of the best moviews I know, not only in its own genre. John Cusack’s play is great, the story is great and you really get sucked into 1408, as if oyu were in that room yourself. The shocking effects immensely raise your adrenaline level and there’s suprises even until the very last seconds. The latter is what’s really interesting and made my day (or night, as I watched it starting at 11.45 p.m.), beause over the years and after some M. Night Shyamalan movies, you get pretty good in guessing how it all may end.
So if you like to get the creeps or if you need to feel your girlfriends fingernails in your flesh, you better watch this!
Thinking about a redesign
From time to time I stumble aross some nice looking themes for Wordpress, which I use in here and over in my German blog. I’m not a fan of scremaing designs. I like it easily readable and well-thought, but it seems a bit funny to me that I’m using themes I did not design myself.
Yesterday and again this eveneing I thought about a redesign, maybe even using the same for both my weblogs. Another question rising is whether or not to change the CMS. During the last few months I spent a lot of time working with Drupal and I must say that it is just a great platform. I also did some projects backed up by Wordpress and in several occasions came across limitations.
As a developer I see the potential in using Drupal and thereby keeping a site extensible. On the other hand I may stick with Wordpress for really simple sites, as WP is faster set up. What I’m gonna do about my own sides? Hm, I haven’t made up my mind just yet. Maybe I’m just going to redesign first and then see whether or not my ideas push beyond WP’s limits.
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